I am having an issue with the typewriter tool. I cannot seem to change my font on about 95% of my PDFs? Every once in awhile I am able to change the font and size. But I cannot find a consistancy and cannot figure out the issue? When I want to write on the PDFs to change size or font, it won't allow me to. Any ideas?

Yes I am aware of this tool. But I used the Typewriter tool to write on top of the actual PDF. Sometimes it allows me to use the tools in the typewriter toolbox and most of the time it doesn't. How do I activate these tools to allow the text I type, using the typewriter tool to input new text on top of the PDF??

I think we are talking about two different methods of typing on the page. I prefer to use the 'Typewriter' Tool, under Tools>Typewriter. The TouchUp Text Tool is something I don't use.

When I use the Typewriter tool, I can move, and position the text I typed. But the font, size, increase/decrease size, increase/decrease line spacing and the color options stay greyed out in the Typewriter toolbar. That used to show as options I can select and not greyed out. Why is this?

Yes, I've tried changing the text before typing while having the typewriter tool active. I've tried clicking the text to change it. I've tried highlighting the text to change it. I've tried to go to properties of the text, and no options under there.

While the change options for Acrobat 8.x Pro/3D are not as fully featuredas those in Acrobat Pro Extended, both do have change options.

With either application I can consistently access the available choices in a fairlystraight forward manner.

Using Acrobat 3D (8.1.4)Open the Typewriter toolbar. With the Hand tool selected, single click on a text stringentered earlier by the Typewriter tool. The cursor shape becomes up-down, left-rightarrows. Double Click.The mouse pointer is now an "I-beam" and a blinking cursor line is present at the insertion point. Click-drag to select text.

The Typewriter toolbar's change options become accessible.(text size and line spacing)With the text string still selected, right click for the context menu. Go to the bottomentry (Text Style) from which a secondary menu is presented for some choices fortext style.

Using Acrobat Pro Extended (9.1)A similar approach. Hand tool > double click > use "I-beam" to click-drag for text selection.Options for change are now accessible on the Typewriter toolbar.Unlike Acrobat 8, you have font color, font type and font size as choices withAcrobat 9.

Acrobat 9.1 Pro - the only solution for me is closing and opening acrobat and then using the typewriter before any other tools. Not a real solution as it wastes considerable time. After using other tools and returning to typewriter, often the options (color, font, size) are gone until I close and re-open. Does anyone have a better solution?

I was having same problem trying to fill in a job application form, and all the tips above did not work -- Sometimes the Typewriter Toolbox would let me change font sizes and edit text, but most of the time it would not. After 2 hours of frustration, I looked at the Properties for the document I was working in and under Security tab there is a small note at the bottom: that this document "restricts some features to allow extended features in Adobe Reader. To create a copy of the document that is not restricted (and has no extended features in Reader), choose File> Save A Copy."

I did "save a copy" and was able to finish typing in the application and send it in. Even going back and forth between different programs and switching tools in Acrobat did not lock out the editing functions of the Typewriter Tool as had happened earlier. I hope this works for everyone else, too.

In my case, using Acrobat Pro 8.1.6 on OS10.5.8, quitting Acrobat and then restarting, and using the Typewriter tool before doing anything else allowed me to change the font size where I needed to.

It would seem appropriate to be able to set a default Typewriter font, size, and style in some preferences, but it seems that some other tools cannot avoid stepping on toes. Even changing pages and magnifying the view seemed to have caused this problem with the Typewriter tool for me.

What worked was saving under a new name, closing the document AND exiting Acrobat 9, then restarting Acrobat 9 and editing the document again.

I also noted that when I tried to resize the text box with the Shift key depressed, which I had used as a shortcut for changing the spacing in previous versions, and is used in other Adobe products, I got a generic "internal error."

I also noted that it seemed to be a bug with double-spaced text. The text is double-spaced with carriage returns, and then the double-spaces disappear. I had to put a space at the beginning of every blank line to avoid problems. Maybe the development team can play with some double-spaced text and see if they can reproduce the problem.

I believe I have good news for all who have this trouble. It's been annoying since day one.

I accidentally discovered that by setting your cursor just off the edges of the document and begin your typing, the font properties always remain easily available!

Once you have created a typed message (any number of characters is okay), you can then drag the filled-in Typewriter Text Box to any location on the document; and you can continue to edit, at will!

Using the Typewriter Tool, I've had less than 05% font selection success when I type directly on/in the document.

Using the Typewriter Tool, I've had 100% font selection success by starting my typing in this space just off the document surface. Once finished typing, I just drag the box to the document surface. I hope this works for you, too!

See image. To enlage this image, press your Ctrl key and scroll. Good luck!

Nick R1, it looks like a neat trick, but unfortunately it did not work for me. I am correcting a galley proof, and the typewriter tool is irritating me to no extent. I just updated the installation to 8.1.6, but the problem remains.

In another document, I found evidence of what two other users have reported above. If I open the document and use the typewriter tool first (before touching anything else), the font options work. But any other operation on that page (any other tool, page view resizing etc.) breaks that, and the font options become grayed out.

I note there are over 5000 hits on this issue. There are also numerous other threads for exactly the same thing. I thing we have a real bug. Typewriter and text box edit appears not to function (YES we are blocking the text, yes we double click, we try absolutely everything to stop the edit functions from being greyed out NO IT DOES NOT WORK). This is the same for use of the 'touch up text' tool which does NOT work according to instructions.

I am convinced this is not a user problem.

Could somebody please tell me how we stop talking about it and get support to DO something, or at least fess up so we can stop wasting our time!

Or am I being naive?

Capitals indicate frustration and not anger or abuse to anybody in particular.

I feel your pain, brother! Unfortunately, as a lowly user (and not one of Adobe Overlords), I have nothing positive to offer to you. And I am not sure that Adobe gives these fora even a passing glance, let alone monitor them. So the problem remains.

I'm using Adobe Professional 8.1.2 and thanks to the replies in this thread, I can now at least get the text size larger or smaller...

However, I don't seem to have the ability to change the FONT. 'Text style' only gives me bold or italics options; I'd like to change to a proportional font to save space (and because I really don't like courier). Is there any way change the font type? Or do I have to upgrade to 9.0 to do this (and even then, can I change the font type?)

I'm new to Acrobat Pro (using Pro 9.3) and sought out this thread for the same reasons everyone else is here. This disclaimer is, I'm no Acrobat expert by any means.

But after suffering some of the many frustrations reported on this thread, I played around with the form I was filling in with the typewriter and concluded that the problem was basically the lack of a non-image layer in the PDF to type the text on. I think this is an Acrobat bug. But I did find two fairly straightforward workarounds. (Actually, it may have to do with the color mode of the image layer in the absense of a non-image layer -- see below.)

The problems seem to come from scanned forms as best I can tell from this thread and looking over many other threads elsewhere discussing the same problem. Mine certainly did.

I found when I typed in the margin outside the scanned area, the adjustments in the Typewriter toolbar came alive. And has several folks have posted here, the adjustments stick around for the session but won't work after closing and reopening the form (I say form, but it's only an image of a form, not an Acrobat form). Or maybe I've misstated that in that the adjustments go away after selecting other tools and returning to the Typewriter.

The best workaround is to OCR the scanned form. This completely removed the problem in my limited testing, hypothetically because it adds an invisibile text layer which, again hypothetically, you can type on without the limitations. I say hypothetically because I've only tried it a couple of times, but all the problems disappeared instantly. That is, it's a guess; but it looks to be a fair guess.

In my experiments with OCR, the smallest file size results from the Exact setting, probably because it doesn't mess with the scanned image whereas the other OCR settings insert various Adobe text renderings of sizes from big to monstrous and also screw around with the images for alignment and whatnot. This is another hypothesis, but I'd bet on it.

The other workaround is, once you've scanned the document, print it back to a pdf with Adobe PDF printer (or maybe another PDF printer, like PDF Creator -- dunno, haven't experimented with that). I'd bet that adds some other layer also, or at least prevents the scanned image to be treated as simply an image layer in Acrobat, but this is pure guesswork. Anyhow, it seems to work with Adobe PDF printer.

In my particular case, the scanned form itself was about 108KB, the Exact OCR'd version of it was 140KB, and the version printed on Adobe PDF was 876KB. A simple four-page form, originally scanned as two-level black and white.

Hmm, it just occurred to me that the B&W scan itself might be a component of this problem, since that obviously abrogates the possibility of selecting a color for the text on the B&W layer. This may frustrate a poor little typing tool too lazy to check it's options one at a time. I'll try a color scan right now ...

Well, by gum, that seems to unlock the Typewriter options. I scanned in color, saved it, typed on it (Typewriter options active), saved that, closed it, reopened it, and edited previously typed text in which Typewriter options were active again. Not so with my original B&W doc. This suggests a third workaround is to scan in color. The color scan (just one page of the same four-page document above) was 400KB or so, so this is clearly more expensive than OCR Exact on a two-level B&W doc, as I would expect. Also more expensive than reprinting through Adobe PDF printer (one page at 400KB versus 4 pages at 800KB through the printer). This is, of course, only one example.

All this suggests to me that the Typewriter options are all or nothin'. If it's typing on a B&W layer, it can't be all, so it's nothin'. Apparently Typewriter doesn't check too often, so if you start typing in the margin (as I did), or outside of the page (as others here report), it figures it can do all, so as long as you keep typing, it works. You can type many different fields, as I found when I filled out the whole four-page document, not understanding the thin ice I was skating on.

As soon as you do something else, when you start typing again it appears to check again and decides it's nothin'. Or something like that. As I've said, this is all hypothetical, but it hangs together and bears checking out. If Adobe ever gets around to this problem, an ancient one, judging from the Google hits.

Anyhow, I hope this helps somebody. I was only frustrated for a few hours, so I got off lucky.

The problem hasn't progressed that far for me. I have found that if I start text 'off page' in the grey area and then move them to where they are wanted, things have continued to work indefinitely. There is also another entry in the string about ensuring all of the text functions are switched on which also helped. But yes it is frustrating how many people will tell you the obvious, especially the dude with the German flag. The problem being of course that the touch up text and typewriter tools are available so erratically.

I believe the correct way to do this is to choose the menu option: "Tools"->"Typewriter"->"Enable Typewriter Tool in Adobe Reader..."

Even though you can use the typewriter in Acrobat Pro, for some reason, the font and size is fixed until you "enable" it in Adobe Reader. It looks like it has something to do with security signatures or something. Anyhow, the way this is presented to the user seems profoundly confusing.